i used to be a death penalty supporter

In the­o­ry, I still am from a pure­ly ide­al­is­tic standpoint.

It could only hap­pen in a hy­po­thet­i­cal, nonex­is­tent world where jus­tice tru­ly is blind, is fair, and it isn’t hand­ed down dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly to the poor and BIPOC. An ex­treme last re­sort re­served only for the most heinous crimes – the Gold­en State Killer, Ted Bundy, Jef­frey Dahmer.

This is not the world we live in and it nev­er will be.

And as I’ve aged and learned and grown, I’ve also ac­cept­ed that fact and I’ve em­braced all the many ar­gu­ments be­hind abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty. I don’t even care about the mon­e­tary costs. Spar­ing one in­no­cent life is worth all the life­time sen­tences of humanity’s most evil and remorseless.

Hav­ing said that … I think it comes from a place of want­i­ng to know an abuser is tru­ly gone for­ev­er. There’s an inim­itable feel­ing of re­lief that comes with know­ing there is ab­solute­ly no chance they will ever come back to wreak more hav­oc on your life. Or that they get to go on in the world, en­joy­ing the free­doms and com­forts and se­cu­ri­ty they stole from you.

It’s al­ways in­ter­est­ing to me when I see peo­ple say “I don’t want him to die, I want him to go to prison.”

Ford par­doned Nixon im­me­di­ate­ly. As I said be­fore, George W. Bush is a war crim­i­nal and he at­tends base­ball games with Ellen when he’s not paint­ing and be­ing memed in pho­tos where he’s giv­ing Michelle Oba­ma a piece of candy.

Trump won’t ever go to prison. If he los­es, and any­thing hap­pens, Biden will par­don him. He’ll be the worst nui­sance he pos­si­bly can be with­out ac­tu­al­ly be­ing in control.

And in many ways he will still be in con­trol even if he’s no longer the pres­i­dent, be­cause he will com­mand the at­ten­tion of mil­lions and con­stant­ly be in­ter­ject­ing in any at­tempt to heal this na­tion and move forward.

Speak­ing to a friend yes­ter­day, we both found so­lace in agree­ing that we sim­ply just want him gone. For­ev­er. No lengthy drawn out le­gal process that is on every sta­tion for months on end, no out of con­trol me­dia cir­cus and con­stant analy­sis from all the talk­ing heads, no more tweets, ab­solute­ly no chance at es­cap­ing consequences …

Just, gone.

Why should he get to con­tin­ue liv­ing in the lap of luxury?

The de­sire for and be­lief in eter­nal judg­ment stems from a place of per­son­al de­sire to know no­body can es­cape ret­ri­bu­tion. I get it. It’s un­der­stand­able. It’s an in­grained hu­man dri­ve. I know I don’t have to tell you this.

Death is a fit­ting pun­ish­ment for some­one whose fa­vorite things are at­ten­tion, con­trol, and ma­nip­u­la­tion. It’s got to be ter­ri­fy­ing to know that you can’t stick around to keep do­ing that.

I just want him to go away forever.

I want this aw­ful re­al­i­ty tv show to end.

 

—emi­ly duchaine

Flom­mist Emi­ly Duchaine lives in the Pa­cif­ic North­west. She likes to drink mead, learn about sharks, and lis­ten to the Talk­ing Heads. She pre­tends to be a pro­fes­sion­al busi­ness­woman most days. Copy­right © 2020 Emi­ly Duchaine.

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